


Meet Me Again

by MaiKusakabe



Series: Meet Me Again [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation, RoyEd Week 2017
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 05:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaiKusakabe/pseuds/MaiKusakabe
Summary: When an alchemical experiment goes wrong, or perhaps well, there are unforeseen consequences for certain people.





	Meet Me Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second (and last) entry for this year’s RoyEd Week :) It’s written (kind of loosely) for Day 7’s prompt “Come to me”.
> 
> Originally, I intended to make the story longer, around 10k, but I didn’t have the time to complete that much, so I left some scenes out. I got to say, though, that I have a ridiculous amount of meta for this universe, so I might write more for it at some point.

“I can’t believe we’re stuck here today,” Joanna Evans groaned, burying her face in her arms. “Months of that show being _everywhere_ and we’ll miss it because of this damn paper.”

“You could always go watch it and fail the class,” Rebecca Johnson suggested teasingly.

Roy sighed.

“Can’t you two drop it? It’s going to be a bust, you can wait and watch it later on youtube or something. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of parodies for you to choose from.”

“Oh, come on, Matthews! I’ve seen you scoff at that research all this time, you can’t say you’re not interested in seeing it fail,” Joanna said, looking up from between her arms to give Roy a properly scornful look.

“I’m not _interested_ ; I just wanted to see what that drivel was about.”

“That’s right, you’re into alchemy,” Rebecca said. “Any theories on what’ll happen?”

“Absolutely nothing, as you well know. Maybe the array will fizzle or something, then we’ll have a week of every channel mocking it and people will move on. It’s just a waste of money that could’ve been invested in something useful.”

Joanna snorted in amusement.

“When has Louis Armstrong ever invested in anything useful? At least this time it’s something amusing instead of him getting high on some crap and causing trouble.”

Roy rolled his eyes. Joanna had a point, of course; Louis Armstrong was undoubtedly the black sheep of the Armstrong family. That didn’t stop Roy from thinking that there were plenty of promising alchemical projects that would have benefitted from that money. But no, Louis Armstrong had to go and decide the nutjob that had talked on some shitty late night show about his theory of souls cycling through history or some bullshit like that was the one worth financing.

People had taken it as a joke at first and they still did, but that hadn’t stopped Armstrong from seeing the project through to the end, going as far as taking care of the negotiations for the damned nationwide array himself. The media coverage was absurd for a project that had no solid scientific foundation whatsoever, and every channel and publication had a team present at the site where the array was going to be activated this same afternoon.

The internet was full of so-called tests predicting which historical character someone had been in a past life, and making comments on the subject was a very popular joke at the moment.

Roy was a bit tired of the jokes.

“But imagine it _is_ true,” Rebecca said with an impish grin, as though reading Roy’s thoughts. “You’d ace History of Democracy then, Roy!”

Roy gave her an exasperated look.

“For the last time, Rebecca, just because my name is Roy it doesn’t mean I was Roy Mustang in another life.” _That_ was what Roy was tired of hearing. They had been out one night, someone had started joking and Gracia’s boyfriend —what was the guy’s name again? Maes?— had said that Roy’s past life had obviously been Roy Mustang. Everybody had kept the joke up ever since then. The fact that Roy kind of resembled President Mustang really didn’t help his case whenever he attempted to get his friends to stop.

“But it’d be great! I mean, who’d be best to help me with that class than the guy who brought democracy to Amestris?”

“You could always study,” Roy suggested with a grin of his own. Rebecca had spent most History of Democracy classes asleep because the professor had a very monotonous voice and, in her words, the class was too fucking early for anyone to expect the students to stay awake while he droned on.

“Does that mean you’ll lend me your notes?”

“No.”

“Can you two shut up?” Joanna said. “If I have to be here I’d like to be done soon. Now, where’d my phone go? These numbers are hell.”

 

* * *

 

 

Roy came to slowly, his eyelids heavy and his head fuzzy. He wanted to continue sleeping, so he turned on his side to do just that.

Something pulled at his hand when he moved it and he winced.

“Oh, no, no, you’re not moving!” an annoyingly loud voice told him, and a pair of hands appeared on his shoulders to push him to rest on his back again.

“Rebecca?” Roy asked without opening his eyes. What was Catalina doing here? Had something happened? Now that he was more awake he noticed that the thing in his hand felt like an IV.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Roy,” she said cheerfully, then pinched his free forearm. _Hard_. “What the fuck have you been doing, Roy Matthews?! You _collapsed_!”

Roy finally opened his eyes. Rebecca was looming over him, an extremely pissed off and worried expression on her face as she glared down at him. Joanna was sitting behind her on a plastic chair, but she had let the scolding to Rebecca. Because few people could make someone feel sorry quite the way that Rebecca Cata— _Johnson_ could.

 _What the hell?_ Roy thought, thoroughly disoriented.

“I collapsed?” Roy repeated, looking for a better explanation.

Rebecca’s scowl deepened on her incredibly young — _no, not young, she’s your age, idiot_ — face, and she stepped back to cross her arms and glower down at him properly.

“What you heard: you collapsed. How many all-nighters have you been pulling? You know that’s not good for you, and it’s not as if you won’t make it to the top of the class anyway—“

Roy tuned her out, the scolding a very familiar one he could probably repeat verbatim. No, he hadn’t pulled any all-nighter lately, much less enough to affect him like this, but it was a convenient excuse. Certainly far better than what was going through his head right now. This scene was extremely familiar, and yet absolutely bizarre at the same time. Rebecca Catalina had never dared to scold him, nothing past a teasing comment here or there, because he had always been a higher-ranking officer she knew through Riza; but Rebecca Johnson had been scolding him since they were in diapers, his childhood best friend who had even followed him in college because she believed in his overly idealistic political views.

Well, something at least made sense from both angles: he was an idealist idiot in politics.

“Are you even listening to me?” Rebecca demanded, her face suddenly invading his personal space. Roy startled, and closed his free hand into a fist before he could snap his fingers.

 _No gloves_. Flame Alchemy was a thing of the past, something from the history books. Alchemists had been trying to replicate it for decades with no success. Roy had read some articles, mainly speculations, out of curiosity. They weren’t even close to the truth. Fortunately.

“Sorry,” he said, reminding himself that he wasn’t alone. “I need to pee.”

Rebecca blinked. She blinked a second time, then scoffed and took a step back.

“I can’t believe you,” she hissed at him. “Here I am, worrying about your health —which _you_ should do— and you’re thinking with your dick!”

Joanna snorted from behind her.

“Sorry,” Roy said, and forced a charming smile to his face.

Rebecca rolled her eyes.

“That’s never worked on me, remember? Go to the damn bathroom so I can chew you out properly.”

Roy sat up and then stood gingerly, half expecting a dizzy spell that didn’t come, and grabbed the IV stand to drag it to the bathroom. He closed the door and let himself fall against it.

_What’s going on?_

He raised his head, eyes going to the mirror. No grey hairs, no wrinkles. Of course not, his hair was dark and his face young. He was only twenty-three. He’d been twenty-three at Ishval.

“ _Fuck_ …” he hissed, and ran his free hand up his face and into his hair.

A hand.

Roy paused and pulled his hand away to study it. Either he was crazy or he wasn’t, and he knew how to test it.

Alchemy through clapping was a myth. It was said the Fullmetal Alchemist and his brother —Alphonse Elric, who had brought Alkahestry to Amestris ( _Al, in that armor_ )— had known how to do it, and so had the Flame Alchemist, but it was one of those things that, just like Flame Alchemy, no one had managed to recreate. Contrary to Flame Alchemy, however, the general consensus amongst scholars was that using alchemy by simply clapping one’s hands wasn’t possible, that it had been an urban legend of the time to explain away prodigious alchemical skills.

And yet Roy knew how to do it, didn’t he?

He approached the towel rack and, careful not to pull at the IV, clapped his hands. He felt the energy rush immediately, but he reached for one of the towels all the same and touched it. The transmutation illuminated the bathroom and a white shirt now hung where the towel had been.

_Okay, not crazy… probably. I’m just two people. How does that even work?_

Roy shook his head, clapped again to return the towel to normal —and it was a flawlessly easy transmutation, as it had been for decades, despite the fact that alchemy had just been a hobby in his twenty-three years of life— and proceeded to wash his face with his free hand in an attempt to center himself.

Information. He needed information. He didn’t remember the circumstances of how he had fainted, he had been working on the damned macroeconomics paper and then he’d woken up here. That was a starting point.

His mind made, Roy took hold of the IV stand again and exited the bathroom.

“What did I miss while I was out?” he asked before Rebecca could start yelling at him. He also sat on the bed before she could order him to do so.

“Oh, not much. We finished the paper while you had your beauty sleep,” Rebecca retorted sarcastically. Good, sarcasm meant she was calmer now. “You owe us.”

“I’ll give you the History notes, is that okay?” Roy offered, which made Rebecca suddenly crow in happiness and victory.

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t take that class,” Joanna reminded him.

“Then I owe you a favor for another time,” Roy said easily. This was normal, almost routine with his friends. Calming in a way. It also felt very alien. “Anything else I should know? Did I reveal any dark secrets in my sleep?” Roy meant it as a joke, a way to make his question seem casual, but as he spoke the words he realized he might very well have spoken in his sleep.

“Unfortunately, no,” Rebecca said, “and I know your dark secrets anyway.”

 _No, you don’t_ , Roy thought bitterly, but remained silent.

Rebecca glanced back at Joanna, they exchanged a long look and Joanna sighed.

“Why me?” she complained.

“You looked it up. It’s all over… everywhere, I guess, so it’s not like he won’t hear.”

“Like I won’t hear what?” Roy asked.

Joanna grimaced.

“Remember the alchemy experiment? Well, turns out they did it earlier —I think we were in the library still— and you were wrong: something did happen.”

 _Experiment?_ It took Roy a moment to place it. The nutjob who believed in reincarnation.

 _Maybe not a nutjob after all_ , he thought. He glanced at Rebecca, who looked perfectly fine. Just Rebecca Johnson, no trace of turmoil anywhere. Her attitude towards him certainly hadn’t changed.

“What happened?” Roy asked, certain it was nothing good from the way they acted.

“Well, it’s… gross, really. And weird, really weird,” Joanna said. “According to what I read, the array activated and the press lost sight of the guy for a moment. There was no nationwide awakening, obviously —we’re not having flashes of past lives or anything,” _more or less_ , “but… well… ugh!” Joanna pulled her phone out of her bag, tapped on the screen a few times and shoved it at Roy. “You look at it, it’s sick!”

Roy took the phone, a knot in his stomach about what could have happened —he had a theory; he didn’t like it— and looked over the article Joanna had pulled up for him.

The alchemist was dead. When the transmutation light had vanished they had found him on the ground, missing his right arm and left leg —a chill ran down Roy’s back— and coughing up blood. From what few words he had gotten out before he died, he had lost his sight as well.

“See? Gross,” Rebecca said, taking the phone from Roy’s limp hand. “They’ve rushed to cordon off the area and break the array before anyone else can touch it, but nobody can make heads or tails of what happened. The TV is full of alchemists failing to come up with an explanation.”

 _I have it,_ Roy thought, the memory of a looming gate in a sea of whiteness fresh in his mind despite the decades that had passed (a c _entury_ , it had been over a century since the Promised Day).

 _A toll_. Or was it tolls? The leg, the arm, the inner bleeding, the sight… Were there more?

“Rebecca,” Roy said, barely preventing himself from using another form of address ( _Colonel Catalina_ ), “could you get the doctor? I want to go home.”

Rebecca frowned at him.

“Will you start studying the moment you get there?” she asked suspiciously, and Roy was grateful for her wording. He had never liked lying to the people he loved, not then and not now.

“No, no studying until I feel better.”

 

* * *

 

 

Roy barely stopped by his room at the dorm long enough to drop his books off. He needed to think, and he knew the place to do it.

He had visited the museum once in middle school when his class had come to Central for a week-long trip, and he had to look up the address to know how to get there, but once that was done he headed for the bus stop. Roy didn’t have a car, which he had never complained much about until he found himself standing with only his thoughts at the stop waiting for the right bus to arrive. Driving would have forced him to concentrate —though he was in no state to drive, much less with today’s traffic.

Despite all his derisive thoughts on the project, Roy had never stopped to think of the dangers of having someone creating a nationwide array for _any_ reason. Not until the dangers of such an array had come crashing to his mind so rudely. There had been security measures, he knew as much, but the fact that nobody seemed to have managed to make heads or tails out of the research meant that anything could have slipped by. As it had happened. In the grand scale of thing they were fortunate to have only one death as a consequence.

The part of Roy that was a relatively sheltered grad student felt horrified by this thought.

Roy’s bus arrived and he climbed on. He focused more than necessary on paying for the ticket and finding a seat, which wasn’t difficult given the odd hour. It was only eight stops to the Roy Mustang Museum of History, and Roy felt a bitter smile pull his lips up at the thought that someone had actually gone and given his name to a museum. Many people would be rolling over in their graves. Those who even _had_ graves.

Roy rested his head against the glass of the window and focused on the streets passing by outside, deliberately ignoring his own thoughts. That skill had come back to him with surprising ease.

The museum was a very large building near the current city center, in what once upon a time had been the slums but now housed most of the city’s newest museums and some +edificios de ocio+, interspersed amongst a series of parks and shops that were a very popular hangout spot in Central. Roy remembered the exhibits there had ranged from the Ishvalan Civil War (the part focused on him, as the war itself had its own museum in the area) to his death. An odd concept, to think of his own death in past tense, he mused as he walked into the empty lobby. Finals period wasn’t a time for people to visit museums, nor was the middle of the afternoon in a week day. There wasn’t even a receptionist behind the desk.

He stopped in the middle of the lobby when his eyes caught on a sign announcing the opening of a new exhibit around a month ago. _The Edward Elric Gallery_. The sign was like a punch to the gut. There it was, in large font above a black and white picture of Roy and Edward. Roy approached, forcing himself to keep his steps steady despite the lack of an audience that could see him. An odd habit to pick up again.

Roy hadn’t had much time or inclination to think clearly past whatever facts forced their way into his mind, and perhaps this wasn’t an exception, but Roy’s mind went to Ed. His eyes fixed upon the picture, in which Ed looked to be around his mid twenties. Roy was dressed in civilian clothes, and they were talking over food at an outdoor table somewhere. Back then, that picture would have been described as two friends talking, probably including some comment about alchemy to remind the readers that they were both genius alchemists without many people to really talk about it. The fact that they had lived together was something that had very deliberately _not_ been debated about or even mentioned at the time.

Now, however… Roy glanced below the picture, to a small paragraph of text.

_“The relationship between Roy Mustang and Edward Elric is a topic that has been widely studied and theorized about over the years. A ladies man during his early career, it is worth mentioning that no romantic relationship is known of for Roy Mustang past his thirty fifth year, around the time that Edward Elric…”_

Roy snorted. The press, the brass and later the government had gone to great lengths to pretend his relationship with Edward had been nothing more than close friendship, that they had lived together out of convenience (there had been many comments about a large library and joint experiments), and _now_ their very obviously romantic relationship was a subject of study?

Roy wasn’t particularly interested in seeing whatever people who had never known them had come up with about their relationship —besides, he was here to sort his mind out— but at the same time a room allotted to them was bound to have pictures.

Roy looked up at Ed’s face —he was frowning, the hand holding his fork up in the air mid-gesticulation and his mouth open— and remembered that he had never shied away from inflicting pain upon himself.

He turned to the left, deciding that he could start sorting his thoughts and two minds with any topic, and walked towards the Edward Elric Gallery.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” That comment, not particularly loud, came clearly from the room in the silence of the museum. Curious, and perhaps a little amused that someone could be offended at a museum of all places, Roy entered the room.

There was a man standing with his back to the door before a wall displaying a collection of newspaper pictures and some paragraphs of text in a similar format to the one in the sign outside.

“May I ask what is so offensive about some text in a museum?” Roy asked, only half-surprised by his own actions. Roy Matthews never would have approached a stranger to ask a random question unless he had good reason for it; Roy Mustang, however, had been all for satisfying his curiosity. Curiosity won over politeness right now, or perhaps he was too off kilter to filter his words properly.

“This-This _bullshit_!” the man said, gesturing at the display.

Roy realized belatedly that homophobia wasn’t just a thing of the past.

“Bullshit?” He came to a stop next to the man and looked at the pictures. They showed a chronological order of articles about Roy in which Ed had featured since Ed had returned from his trip to the West.

“Yeah. I mean, these dudes didn’t even get relatives to talk, but assume Mustang and Elric kept their relationship secret out of _fear_.” The man sounded so genuinely offended by the thought that Roy felt flattered.

He turned around, a comment of agreement ready, and froze.

This man —and he was a man, mid to late twenties— was still facing the display, frowning up at it. Even if Roy hadn’t seen that frown moments ago he would have recognized it. Combined with the golden eyes —Xerxesian ancestry, the most uncommon eye color in Amestris— and hair, that face was unmistakable. Roy didn’t even stop to think that the features didn’t exactly fit his memories.

“Edward?”

Oh, yes, his brain-to-mouth filter was clearly shot to hell.

The man turned, a surprised expression on his face, and then it was Edward Elric blinking down at him —he was actually _taller_ than Roy.

“… _Fuck_.”

“I don’t think that’s allowed in a public space, even in this day and age.”

There was a short pause, and then Ed burst out laughing. His laughter was a little —a lot— hysterical. Roy could relate. His brain was too busy staring and taking in every single detail to let him join in the hysterical laughter, no matter how fitting it would have been.

A minute, maybe two, later Ed calmed down.

“Fucking shit. A sexual joke? Really?”

“You were cursing,” Roy said dumbly.

“Guess I was. It fits you’re still a pervert.”

They fell silent, just staring at each other. Ed was dressed in a bright red shirt and leather pants —very fitting and very much _Ed_ — and he looked less muscular than Roy had been used to. Clearly fit, but he had just as clearly not spent his life training any more than Roy had spent his early adulthood learning how to be a soldier.

“Maybe we should go outside,” Roy suggested hesitantly, looking around. He wondered if Ed’s laughter had drawn any attention, or if some other stray visitor would come to the museum.

“Yeah. I guess. Just tell me you’re still Roy and I’m not fucking nuts.”

“I’m still Roy, but I can’t guarantee you are sane,” Roy said, and it was oddly easy to fall into teasing despite the years it had been since he last saw Ed —both then and now.

“Cute,” Ed drawled with an eye roll.

Silence was back, heavy and awkward, but neither of them tried to break it. Instead they walked back to the lobby and out into the greenery surrounding the museum. Ed took point, leading Roy to a bench further down the park, away from this and other buildings. They sat down, and settling next to each other instead of at the corners of the bench was the least awkward movement since they had met.

“Can you do alchemy?” Roy asked.

“No. Couldn’t as a kid and couldn’t when I tried earlier. You?”

“Yes. Just like I could, I’d say, even if I have no intention of using Flame Alchemy ever again.”

Ed nodded.

“What the hell happened? I thought I was going mad or something when I woke up. Nobody was acting any different, but now here you are and…” Ed shrugged. “I can’t believe that shit worked. Even if only partially.”

“You don’t know anyone from back then?” Roy asked, turning to look at Ed curiously.

Ed shrugged a second time.

“I got a student named Paninya, but I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or if she’s Winry’s Paninya. You?”

“Rebecca Catalina is my childhood best friend, and I know Gracia. And…” Roy hesitated, his mind for the first time going back to the friends he hadn’t thought about since waking up. “And I’ve met Maes a couple times.”

“ _Hughes_?” Ed hissed, surprised.

“Yeah. He’s certainly as annoying as he was.” And Roy wasn’t sure how he would react around him. Rebecca was one thing, he knew her far better now than he had back then, but Maes… he barely knew Maes in passing now, Maes was just a friend’s boyfriend, and Roy would have to act accordingly. Somehow. He ran a hand up his face and into his hair. “This is a mess.”

“Not arguing that.”

“Al?” Roy asked, certain that he already knew the answer. Had Ed known Al, if Roy’s theory was correct, then he would have been here too.

Ed leaned back on his hands and closed his eyes.

“I looked him up on my way here. Alphonse Elric died fifteen years ago,” he said flatly.

“…I see. He must be a child then,” _if he’s around at all_. “You mentioned relatives?”

“Yeah. Those texts in there said no one had agreed to answer questions about us. Dunno why, they must’ve known you’d love the media circus.”

“I think they were respecting our privacy,” Roy suggested.

Predictably, Ed snorted.

“You know what I think about keeping it a secret.” Yes, Roy did. Ed had been very annoyed about the fact they had been forced to keep their relationship a secret —and honestly, so had Roy— but Roy would have never advanced the way he had if their relationship had been public. By the time the first rumors had appeared he had already been president.

“You’re oddly calm about all of this,” Roy commented.

“I’m having a silent panic attack. I bet you are, too.”

“Not really. I think I haven’t fully processed this is really happening.”

Ed snickered.

“This is the weirdest shit that’s ever happened to me,” he said.

“Why? Not used to being of average height?”

“Oh, shut up, _brat_ ,” Ed said, and suddenly grinned. “How old are you, anyway? Twenty?”

“Twenty-three. Which means I’m old enough to ask you out, _old man_.”

“I’m twenty-eight, not an old man. And that’s the lamest request I’ve heard. Even from you.”

“Are you refusing?”

“No.”

 

* * *

 

 

The awkwardness lessened through the evening. Ed had insisted that he needed a coffee, something Roy would never refuse himself, and so they had gone in search of a coffee shop. Instead of settling at a table, though, they had asked for takeout cups and started walking down a random path in the park. Their conversation was a strange mix between uncomfortable silences, uncertain comments and bouts of easygoing interactions. They fell back into old patterns that felt still perfectly natural, and they tried to catch the other up on their current lives.

Ed had, unsurprisingly, finished his PhD three years ago, and now researched and taught classes at the university. It was odd to think that Ed was actually older than Roy. Ed was an only child, and muttered that he didn’t have much of a relationship with his parents before asking about Roy’s own family. It was only then that Roy thought how strange it felt to actually have parents, just as much as being an only child did. He may not have had blood siblings before, but he had grown up surrounded by girls who had been more than happy to treat him as their little brother.

“Politics _again_?” Ed asked, snorting in amusement when Roy told him about his studies.

“I’m afraid so. At least this time I can be openly bisexual.”

Ed stopped.

“You’re out, then?” he asked, taking a sip of his coffee and failing to make it look casual. It seemed Ed was still prone to overacting.

“I am,” Roy said, stopping a few steps ahead of Ed and turning around to face him.

“So if I jumped you on the street your friends wouldn’t mind?” Ed grinned wickedly, an expression Roy hadn’t known he’d missed so much until then.

“Well, I imagine they’d be suspicious of the strange old man molesting me.”

Ed rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come on. Five years is _nothing_. And especially not against fourteen.”

Roy shrugged.

“Perhaps, but how many years of age jokes do I owe you?”

“About as many as I owe you of short jokes,” Ed said, narrowing his eyes at Roy.

“Go ahead. I’m perfectly comfortable with my height.”

“And you’re still a jerk,” Ed muttered, not bothering to lower his voice. It was relieving to know they could still be utterly childish.

“You could always shut me up,” Roy suggested, and grinned to mask the fact that, yes, Ed could, and for some absurd reason Roy felt suddenly nervous about it, the same way he had on his first date.

Ed paused and looked at Roy, their eyes meeting for what felt like an eternity but probably was just mere seconds.

“You’re right, I can.” Ed approached Roy, and raised his free hand to Roy’s face, but let it hovering inches away from his skin. “Before I jump you and stop thinking… do you want to come home with me? I want to know this is real tomorrow.”

“You have to ask?” Roy asked, as if he would let Ed out of his sight so soon after finding him.

Ed grinned.

“I was being polite.”

Roy nearly rolled his eyes.

“Don’t bother.”

So Ed didn’t. In a moment Ed’s fingers were tangled in Roy’s hair, and his mouth was moving hungrily against Roy’s. Roy dropped his coffee —what was coffee against Ed’s mouth?— and his hands found Ed’s head and his too short hair.

This, he knew he had missed.


End file.
